Far Away, So Close
by felinefemme
Summary: U2 Songfic. I thought someone would make a fanvid of this, but I guess not. Then again, the lyrics are enough to depress you without adding Reichenfeels to it.


Author: FelineFemme

Song: "Stay (Faraway, So Close)" – U2

Summary: John deals with life after Sherlock.  
Rating: T  
Genre: angst, Post-Reichenbach  
Length: 1,229  
Warnings: suicide, survivor guilt, depression  
Author notes: I thought someone would make a fanvid of this, but I guess not. Then again, the lyrics are enough to depress you without adding Reichenfeels to it. Wrote this for the 3rd tumblr challenge for "Let's Write Sherlock".  
Links: watch?v=-bdr4mVaudg

_Red lights, grey morning  
You stumble out of a hole in the ground  
A vampire or a victim  
It depends on who's around  
You used to stay in to watch the adverts  
You could lip synch to the talk shows_

It was strange, how people have forgotten Sherlock Holmes, but there was quite a few who seemed to look like him, John thought. Perhaps there was just an abundance of tall men wearing expensive coats, blue scarves and dark curly hair in London these days. He was fairly sure the "goth" thing was out, or maybe he was just living in the wrong neighborhood to keep mistaking perfect strangers for someone he thought he knew. But none of those men would keep him up after hours playing the violin, or chasing after some criminal, or deduce the biggest things from the minutest details. It's probable that more than a few watch crap telly, but none would deduce lack of paternity from the turn-ups on someone's jeans.

_And if you look, you look through me  
And when you talk it's not to me  
And when I touch you, you don't feel a thing_

There were times when nobody believed Sherlock had feelings, or at least, none in the range of a normal human. Hell, he counted himself as one of those people, especially since, the last time he'd seen the man face to face, he'd called him "a machine". He alternated between excusing himself after having one of the worst 48 hours of his life, and berating himself for deeply insulting the friend he'd believed in. And yes, Sherlock could be a right bastard when manipulating people with tears, smiling, or even just being himself, with others calling him "psychopath", while he himself termed it being a "high-functioning sociopath". John and Sherlock often had dual monologues with each other, rather than conversations, where they'd both be talking to the other, but they'd be focused on their own threads rather than the other's. And yet, Sherlock would recall the exact words a possible suspect said in relation to an overlooked clue, but still forget to pick up the damn milk. God knew the man had no sense of boundaries or propriety when it came to being a grown man, since he freely borrowed John's laptop and made John dig through Sherlock's pockets for a mobile phone he couldn't be arsed to reply to. It seemed he truly believed his body was only "transport", something that forgot about eating or sleeping, something that could run, punch, pickpocket, or swan about, but never really used for emotional things. In fact, the only two people he'd seen Sherlock positively touch of his own volition was Mrs. Hudson, when he hugged and kissed her on the cheek, and Molly Hooper, who he apologized to by, astoundingly, also kissing on the cheek. And yet, John felt that Sherlock had become more human in the last year, falling for the seductive Irene Adler and afraid of his own hallucinations in Dewer's Hollow. What a pity that the world found out Sherlock Holmes could be touched, could be truly human, only by dying.

_And if you listen I can't call  
And if you jump, you just might fall  
And if you shout I'll only hear you _

John had returned Harry's mobile phone to her not long after… not long after. There wasn't anyone he wanted to talk to, really, and he wasn't interested in the world for a while, in spite of the world being interested in him. He hadn't listened to what Harry said she'd done with it, but he was content enough that she was sober enough to offer him some tea as they had the longest, most silent reunion they'd had in months. Years, really. He shut down his blog after one last entry and moved into a bedsit, effectively keeping the world out. He continued to ghost through the days, not looking up, or he'd see Sherlock on the ledge, not looking down, or he'd see Sherlock, sightless and bloody with death. It got so bad he ended up making an appointment to see his former therapist, who was startled enough to agree to see him. As before, he couldn't really tell her anything, nothing real, nothing true. When he finally sat across her, in the same old chair, he found himself unable to say more than soft, bitter words that barely scratched the surface of what he truly thought, what he really felt. Yes, he knew that that damnable brother of Sherlock's still had access to Ella's files, but John thought he should at least make an effort to, well, take a step forward. Or something shrinky like that. Physician, heal thyself. Ha, bloody ha. The only good thing that came out of that session was that she'd said to try and at least make contact with friends who had good memories of Sherlock. There was only one he could think of who he felt he could see without breaking down completely in front of, mentally or physically, and that was Mrs. Hudson. So he'd called her, and she said she was on her way to visit Sherlock's grave, would he like to come with?

_If I could stay - then the night would give you up  
Stay - then the day would keep its trust  
Stay with the demons you drowned  
Stay with the spirit I found  
Stay, and the night would be enough_

He wasn't sure what he expected, a zombie Sherlock to come clawing out of the grave after his heartfelt speech? Or his flatmate coming up from behind like a cat, his voice and tone low, all to make John jump ten feet in the air as usual? Or have Mrs. Hudson run to him, crying that the hospital just called, it's all been a mistake, and Sherlock's still alive? All he could do, after the anticlimactic silence, is rejoin Mrs. Hudson, and slowly, but surely, rejoin the still-colorless world. He found himself making plans with his former landlady to deal with Sherlock's things, and using her phone to call Sarah about perhaps working at the surgery next month. Or next week, whenever she's got, well… Yeah, that wasn't awkward at all. When he hangs up, his former landlady is smiling crookedly at him, and he finds himself doing the same. Still, he refuses her offer to return for rent half off, at least for the time being, and they leave in different taxi cabs.

John used to have what people would call "nightmares". He calls them exciting bits of his past life. Before, bits of his past life would include the whirlwind of exam week, or saving his drunk sister from bad situations, and later, it featured the firefights he went into with his men, with his friends. After he met Sherlock, those bits became waking reality, the good times and the bad, and he got used to falling into dreamless sleep.

Now, however, he's wide awake, but the sky is still dark, he's staring up from his bed, and there's just one bit that plays over and over in his mind.

_Three o'clock in the morning  
It's quiet and there's no one around  
Just the bang and the clatter  
As an angel runs to ground  
Just the bang and the clatter  
As an angel hits the ground_


End file.
